For ease of deployment, software management, and hardware cost reduction reasons, virtual machines (VMs) running in computer systems are often used to support virtual desktops for use in an organization in place of physical workstations. The virtual desktops execute within the VMs, and the combination of a desktop and a VM is referred to herein as a “desktop VM” Each desktop VM is typically created as a copy of an existing parent VM as a “full clone” or a “linked clone.”
A full clone is an independent copy of the parent VM that shares nothing with the parent VM after the cloning operation. By contrast, a linked clone is copied from a replica VM derived from a snapshot (i.e., preserved state) of the parent VM. After the cloning operation, the linked clones share virtual disks with the replica VM. All clones that are created from the same parent VM are initially configured with the same virtual hardware resources (e.g., number of virtual central processing units, amount of memory, etc.) as the parent VM and each other.
To accommodate varying needs and priorities across organizations, the virtual hardware resources of individual desktop VMs may be customized. For instance, any number of desktop VMs may be optimized to execute high priority and computationally intensive work by increasing the number of CPUs compared to the parent VM. To differentiate the virtual hardware resources for targeted full clones, an administrator either manually configures each desktop VM or creates new parent VMs—one for each different configuration. Similarly, to differentiate the virtual hardware resources for targeted linked clones, the administrator creates a new, individualized snapshot and an additional replica. VM for each different configuration.
Because re-configuring the virtual hardware resources is a per-configuration, predominantly manual process, customizing desktop VMs is time consuming and error-prone, Further, this process requires additional memory and storage to support different parent VMs and/or replica VMs. For example, if a pool of 2000 desktop VMs are configured as linked clones, and 200 of these desktop VMs are customized to reflect 10 different sets of virtual hardware resources, then at least one parent VM with 10 different snapshots and 10 corresponding replica VMs are generated. Consequently, a more efficient approach to customizing virtual hardware resources across desktop VMs is desirable.